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Toxic Threats to Children

1997 General Resolution

BECAUSE Unitarian Universalists covenant to affirm and promote the
inherent worth and dignity of every person and respect for the interdependent
web of all existence of which we are a part; and

WHEREAS a team of scientists and doctors appointed by the National Academy of
Sciences issued a report entitled "Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and
Children" in which they said that children are at risk of overexposure to
agricultural pesticides and other toxins;

WHEREAS pesticides banned in the United States are freely sold to foreign
customers, thus endangering both foreign populations and United States consumers
of imported produce;

WHEREAS lead poisoning has been declared "the most serious environmental
threat to the health of American children" by the United States Department of
Health and Human Services and statistics available in 1996 show that nine
percent of all children under six years of age in the United States are lead
poisoned;

WHEREAS a significant number of scientific studies demonstrate that
environmental pollutants are implicated in disruptions of the nervous,
endocrine, and immune systems of a variety of animals and may pose a threat to
children and adults, with children the more vulnerable;

WHEREAS toxins in the environment disproportionately damage poor children;
and

WHEREAS "since 1950, 70,000 new chemical compounds have been invented and
dispersed into our environment . . . [although] only a fraction of these have
been tested for human toxicity; we are by default conducting a massive clinical
toxicological trial and our children and their children are the experimental
animals" (Needleman & Landrigan, Raising Children Toxic Free);

Work with the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and other groups
working to reduce toxic threats;

Reduce their "toxic load" by making more careful choices of foods, building
materials, and other products in their homes and congregations;

Work cooperatively to develop shareholder resolutions which expand corporate
adherence to the CERES (Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economics)
Principles, a corporate environmental code; and

Encourage more independent objective research on the effects of toxins and
the development of safer alternatives.